Tokyo – Panasonic Corp on Tuesday reported the highest net profit in 23 years for the first six months of a business year, thanks to strong sales of digital consumer electronics.

The company, which changed its name from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co earlier this month, saw net profit rise by 22.2 per cent during the first six months of fiscal 2008 to 128.49 billion yen (1.38 billion dollars), compared to the year before.

The Japanese home electronics company logged an operating profit of 228.15 billion yen, up 3.7 per cent year-on-year for the first half of the business year starting in April.

Sales were down, however, by 4 per cent to 4.34 trillion yen, mainly because Panasonic excluded Victor Company of Japan (JVC) from its group earnings, the group said. Panasonic reduced its share in JVC in August 2007.

Shipments of plasma display panel television sets surged 58 per cent to 2.71 million units, while liquid crystal display televisions were up 52 per cent at 2.17 million units.

Sales of digital products rose 14 per cent from April to September to 962.7 billion yen.

Second quarter net profits fell by 16 per cent to 55.5 billion yen, operating profit dropped 19 per cent to 118.6 billion yen, while sales were down 4 per cent to 2.19 trillion yen.

Panasonic maintained its earnings projections unchanged for the full year through March 31, with net profit to jump 10 per cent to 310 billion yen and sales to grow 1.4 per cent to 9.2 trillion yen. Operating profit was to rise 7.8 per cent to 560 billion yen. (dpa)